Saturday, December 09, 2006

L'update

It's been a pretty good couple of days. I took Friday off from work to write. In fact, I have every Friday off this month, for the writing. All these vacation days I have to burn, or I lose them. Yeah. It's a real tragedy. So I've gotten a lot done, yesterday and today. Pretty much totally replotted the book, and started writing the bits that will string together the bits of the old text that I'm keeping. But it's nice to have single 8.5x11 piece of paper that has the entire story, page one to page end.

I don't know why the events surrounding the recent death of James Kim has been bothering me so much. I don't follow media much, don't pay attention when your White Women disappear, unlike most of America. But this one caught in my head. I think it has something to do with my relationship to the wild, to the unbroken pieces of the planet that still stalk the edges of our cities, our highway systems and fast food delivery areas. I don't want to get in to whether or not he made mistakes, because of course he did. Everyone does. What I want to focus on is this: This is how stories end sometimes. Sometimes a helicopter sees you, sees your umbrella or your smoke signal, sometimes you stumble on a hunting party or a gas station, or vacationing kayakers who happen to have a satphone. Sometimes.

And sometimes you lean over to kiss your wife goodbye, you pat your children on the head. You go out and do something superhuman, superheroic. You're resourceful and brave and unbelievably determined to overcome. And then you die, and your children are too young to remember you, and your wife has to go on in the constant absence of you, the void that you used to fill. Sometimes that how stories end.